As we step into a new year, I’m reminded that even the quietest moments are part of our story.
I started my first blog somewhere between the year I got married and the year we got pregnant with Ava. Like so many millennials, I began on Tumblr, migrated to Blogspot, slapped on a custom domain, and somehow... I never left. Well, not entirely. I’ve tried other platforms—Squarespace, and Wix —but no matter where I was, I was always blogging. Blogging became my digital diary, my way of laying bare my soul not only for others but for myself. It was a place to process, a space where my thoughts could unfold and become something tangible, something lasting.When Justin deployed, blogging became my lifeline. It was a way to fill the hours, yes, but also a way to create a digital record of our journey. I wanted our new baby to have a story to share with her daddy one day. So, I blogged through it all—the MEGA moves, the trials and triumphs of military life, the endless shifts in our world. I blogged when my mom passed away, through the grief and the gut-wrenching move to Texas, and through the months that followed as I tried to make sense of it all. I blogged when we struggled to find the right reproductive endocrinologist and when that same doctor fired me. I blogged through pregnancy losses, through our happiest of moments, through pregnancy milestones, through our babies and their growth. Through each first and last days of school. I’ve shared it all.
This blog has survived name changes, its first brush with online bullying (thank you, New York), and countless seasons of my life. For 13 years, it’s been here with me, a constant thread. But lately, I’ve struggled to share.
2024 was a year of incredible growth and change for our family. It was the year we came home, and yet, it wasn’t without its heartbreaks. Losing Nana still feels unreal. Nearly a year has passed, and it’s still hard to fathom a world where she isn’t here. I find myself at a loss for words, unsure how to write about her absence, unsure how to process a grief that has altered my reality in ways I never anticipated. She wasn’t my Nana—she was Justin’s, she was my children’s—but her absence has created a void in my life that I never expected. It’s hard, and it’s messy, and it’s something I didn’t know how to articulate or really comprehend that I’d be impacted so immensely.
I think I just needed time. Time to feel it all, to let my world unfold at its own pace. I took so much time off from writing, but now, I’m ready to return to the space that feels like home. I want to share again. I want to write and let the words release what has been stored up for too long.I want to share our projects, our travels, our ideas, and our life. I want to share my children’s journeys because, truly, they are the reason this blog has endured. They are the reason I wanted to leave a piece of myself here, a record of our story for them—should they ever want it.
Here’s to writing again. Here’s to creating, sharing, and embracing the beauty of the written word. Blogging isn’t dead, no matter how the content landscape shifts, and no matter how we digest information in a fast-paced digital world. The written word is still beautiful, and I’m so glad to be here, writing again.
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